Emmaus shines bright
Green Hornets, the EPC champs, add title in a postseason to remember
When it entered play on May 1, Emmaus seemed like just an average baseball team.
The Green Hornets were coming off a 2-1 loss to Bethlehem Catholic, were 9-4 overall, seemed overshadowed by several other teams and were nursing some key injuries.
What a difference a month makes. Emmaus had a month of May to remember and started off June with another great memory Tuesday night.
The Green Hornets won their 10th straight game and grabbed their second championship in 13 nights, this time taking the District 11 6A crown with a compelling 7-6 victory over Parkland.
At night’s end, junior third baseman Tyler LePage was the one holding a sign presented by District 11 signifying the 6A championship and no one deserved to hold the moment more.
LePage not only had two hits and knocked in two runs, but he made a remarkable defensive play to end the top of the sixth after Parkland scored four runs to cut a 7-2 deficit to one.
With the tying run at second and Luke Meehan, who was 2-for-2 and an RBI to that point, LePage dove to his right to keep the ball from going into left field. Then from his knees, he threw a strike to first baseman Colin Foley to nab Meehan for the inning-ending and district-saving out.
“Honestly, I just blanked out,” LePage said of his dive and throw to preserve the lead. “I really focused on working hard for my pitcher and did about a thousand of those in practice. I was just working hard and executed. It took a lot of adrenaline.”
The adrenaline rush was felt by junior pitcher Luke Deschenes. After
getting help from LePage for the final out of the sixth, Deschenes struck out the side in the seventh.
It was a reversal of roles for Deschenes who started the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship against Pleasant Valley and turned it over to Braden Waller for the final eight outs of a 4-1 win.
This time it was Deschenes relieving Waller, who gutted out his longest stint since returning to the mound from injury.
Waller, a lefthanded senior headed to Rowan University, scattered seven hits and three walks in his 5⅔ innings. He shook off a run by Parkland in the first inning when Meehan singled in a run and a home run by the Trojans’ Jacob Donmoyer in the fourth.
He stranded two in the fifth, but Parkland got four hits in the sixth and took advantage of two Emmaus errors to get within one and set up the seventh-inning drama.
Deschenes was ready to get the call for one of his rare relief appearances of the season.
“There was so much energy and being on the field was just electric,” Deschenes said. “I had to make sure it didn’t overwhelm me. I had to mentally and physically prepare the best that I could because it’s not a situation I’ve been in at all. Everything was definitely there today. My mechanics felt good and I felt I could put the ball where I needed to.”
Asked if he saw this coming, Deschenes said: “We’ve definitely been hot recently. We didn’t have the best regular season we could have had, but we came into the postseason with a dog mentality and we just wanted to give it our best every single game and that’s what we’ve done. Some people who may not think we’re the best team in the EPC or District 11, but we fight and we’re scrappy.”
And they are going on to the state tournament as is Parkland. PIAA play begins Monday and Emmaus (21-5) will be playing the District 3 runners-up (Gov. Mifflin or Wilson Westlawn) while the Trojans (19-6) will face the District One champ (Boyertown or Neshaminy).
While disappointed, Parkland coach Kurt Weber believes his young team will regroup.
“We made too many mistakes and against a good team like that you can’t give them as many free things as we gave them,” Weber said. “But we battled and we’re a young club that will learn from this going into states. I think the fact that we battled at the end, the mindset is there. The guys will go home and think about some of the opportunities we wasted and the mistakes we made that are uncharacteristic of us. They’ll be anxious to practice and forget this one and move on.”
Emmaus will look to continue its formula that produced 11 hits, all singles, including two each by Blake Schantz, LePage and Waller. Waller also knocked in two runs and Andrew O’Brien scored three runs.
“It would have been a special year even if we didn’t come away with this one,” Haas said. “Our guys battle, they’re resilient, they don’t quit. They deal with adversity. We were down 1-0 early, took the lead and knew Parkland was going to battle back. For our guys to face that kind of challenge and rise up speaks to their character.”
Asked where he’d like to play next, Haas said it didn’t matter.
“I will go to Alaska if I have to,” he said. “We’re going to be ready for that game. We’re going to be ready to compete from start to finish.”
Parkland 100 104 0 — 6 8 2 Emmaus 201 400 x — 7 11 3 Algard, Lehr (4), Bo Barthol (6) and Razzis; Waller, and Chiego. W: Waller. L: Algard.
HR: Parkland, Donmoyer (4th, none on). 2B: Parkland, Bo Barthol, Ruisch. RBIs: Parkland, Donmoyer 2, Meehan, Bo Barthol, Ratfliff. Emmaus, LePage 2, Waller 2, O’Brien, Chiego.